Tuesday, June 16

Two months ago, Lynda Adamson had put us in touch with a friend of hers who lives in Tallinn, Estonia. Lynda met Suliko in the 1990's during a school trip that Lynda was leading. We had arranged to meet Suilko at her home in the center of the old town between 8 and 9AM. That meant the 4 of us had to get going a little faster and earlier than we were used to, but we did. 😄👏🏻😄

We walked out onto the pier and found a taxi after some confusion. Here's the problem: should you follow the signs that say 🚕 taxi to the right ➡️ or walk over to the 🚕 taxis🚖 you see sitting on the left⬅️. Linda wanted to go left but we went right and then left. She was right again. 💃🎉💃👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

We don't use taxis much but it's interesting to experience the different driver's personalities. Some are chatty. This one wasn't. The old town was close but we didn't know exactly where we were going and wanted to get there quickly. Therefore, he might have been unhappy with the small fare. He gave us quite the ride - 5 or 6 narrow streets. Linda didn't think he took us the shortest route but I tipped him a little. It was a fun ride.🚕

Tallinn is a beautiful little town and one of our favorites. 

Suliko lives on Pikk Street which means "long". It took us a few minutes to follow the house numbers but we found her and she was ready for us. Her apartment is on the second floor of a building that was constructed in the 15th century. From the hallway, we entered a small foyer (not so small 😕) that led into a very large living room. The ceilings had to be 18-20 feet. Interesting artwork all around. 

We sat in a small conversation area and she served us juice and sweets while we talked about what we might do. She outlined a walk around the old town both lower and upper. The four of us thought her plan sounded just fine. Why not agree with the one who lives there? 

Suliko is a fountain of information and she poured forth. Did you know that Skype was created here? Sure enough, in 2003. A good portion of the city walls still stand. There are quite a few towers too and they each have a name. She lives near Fat Margaret. Another one in the upper town was named Hermann. There is a lower town where we started our tour and an upper town which originally was only accessible to the nobility. 

A relief of an instructor who was always gesturing with his hands. That is one of his hands sticking out.

We went into a pharmacy that dated from 1422. The inside looked very original with old distilling equipment and scales sitting around. Estonia is Lutheran but one of the main churches is Baptist. 

Here's one of the main churches that is not a Baptist one.

The Parliament building sits at the highest point. A large building that was used by the KGB for torture is being developed into luxury apartments. A Soviet theatre has been converted into a club. I think Capitalism won. $$$☺️

Estonia is almost totally wired for the Internet. They use I.D. cards to access almost everything. Far ahead of us. 

We stopped at a shop called Eesi (Linda thinks) where we sampled 🐓 chicken pate, crisps of 🍒🍍🍏🍊 dried fruit, and Estonian 🍞 bread: barley/rye and another with 🍒 cherries and nuts. Linda liked the second one best. I expected to like the rye but it was very dry and rough textured.  Eesi is Estonian for Estonia (again, Linda thinks she remembered it right.)

After about 2 1/2 hours we were tired 🚶🏼 walking on cobblestones and stopped for ☕️coffee and 🍺 beer. Suliko wanted us to try local beer. It had a definite taste that is hard to describe. Suliko left us after coffee ☕️ and we couldn't stop thanking her🎆. What a great thing🎉. Thank you Lynda for setting us up 🎈. It's rare that tourists are able to spend time with locals especially for a short visit🎁.  

Stuff happens on the street

We returned to two of the shops Suilko had shown us. Linda bought a few trinkets and Heidi bought a beautiful wooden bowl. 

European towns all seem to have flower markets on their streets. We see this kind of thing all of the time. Maybe its just a summer thing.

A sculpture in the park. We think it is in honor of working men. He seems to be resting from heavy labor.

We started walking back to the ship but in a somewhat circuitous path. There are lots of kiosks near the ship 🚢 and that took us a little bit of time to get through. 

Back on the ship 🚢 we ate lunch and then Linda and I soaked ourselves in the whirlpool. 🏊🏻 Oh, that really felt good on the feet. 

Dinner with Heidi and Doug and then back to the room to watch the 🌅 sun set at about 10:30. The Russians call this time of year White Nights.